


Give

by OfEndlessWonder



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, but the ending is a happy one cause it's me, like quite a lot of angst??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 21:17:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9028069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfEndlessWonder/pseuds/OfEndlessWonder
Summary: 'She’s getting married, Cat tells herself once again, sternly, repeating it like a mantra because if Kara truly loved her maybe she never would have moved on at all – Cat certainly hasn’t managed it, has been on only three dates ever since their messy ending, and all had ended early because her heart just hadn’t been in it and after the third she’d wondered what the point of it all was, anyway. Stop acting like a lovesick teenager.' Based on the prompt “I love you. I’m completely and utterly in love with you. Please don’t get married.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [residentgeekmonkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/residentgeekmonkey/gifts).



> This isn't very holiday-themed, but consider it a gift to all you lovely people out there in the Supercat fandom. Writing has been a struggle lately but the support and encouragement and lovely comments from you guys is slowly easing me back into it. 
> 
> So enjoy, and I hope you all have a wonderful few days!

_I've been wasting all this time_   
_Trying to keep you off my mind, yeah_   
_You off my mind_

* * *

 

Cat freezes when she sees her from across the room.

Her whole body goes tense, and she cuts herself off mid-sentence, earning a look of concern from Perry White, who had been eager to congratulate his former employee on the award she's here to receive tonight.

Here, in Metropolis.

Here, surrounded by the most important names in media, by the most important names at the Daily Planet, and really, Cat should have expected this, should have _prepared_ for this, because she knows damn well where Kara Danvers' next job had taken her after their relationship had crashed and burned.

It was no surprise to Cat, that she'd made waves and quickly climbed the ranks at the Planet.

She'd been her protégée, after all.

Cat had just always imagined that Kara would be the head of a department at CatCo, one day, rather than the Planet.

It's been eighteen months since Cat last laid eyes on her – in person, anyway, for she is often confronted with images of Supergirl and her breath catches each and every single time – and she still manages to take her breath away.

She's as beautiful as always, her hair scraped back into an elegant braid, a vision in red, the dress bright and drawing the eyes of everyone in the room.

She's stood talking to her cousin and Lois Lane, and she's nestled into the side of a guy with sandy hair and a sweet smile.

His arm is around her waist, fingers splayed across her hip, and when Kara gestures as she says something to the group, the light catches on the glittering ring on her finger, and Cat feels like a knife has just been thrust into her chest.

She lets out a choked noise, halfway between a gasp and a whimper, and Perry looks at her with alarm.

"Cat? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She manages to force a smile, and she knows it's a convincing one because she's had plenty of practice, these last eighteen months, of faking a smile even though on the inside, she feels like she's breaking.

Perry still looks mildly concerned, but he lets it slide.

And then, curse him, he notices the line of Cat's gaze.

"I can't believe you let her go, Cat," he murmurs, glancing towards Kara with a shake of his head, and even though she knows he means only in the professional sense, the words sting, and every time she breathes it feels like there's a shard of glass slicing into her heart. "She's the greatest employee I think I've ever had. Well," he offers her a grin, "since you."

"High praise indeed," Cat murmurs, her voice low, thick with suppressed emotion, and Kara glances away from Clark, laughing, and her eyes catch sight of Cat, who just can't seem to manage to stop _looking_ at her, made greedy by the months of separation.

The smile slides right off her face, her eyes widening a little, and Cat watches the way her throat bobs as she swallows, hard.

Her eyes are still that brilliant shade of blue, the eyes that haunt Cat at night, and make it impossible for her to sleep whenever she visits her beach house, because the colour of the heaving waves in the silvery moonlight always reminds her of what it felt like to drown in Kara's eyes and the feeling of strong arms around her waist.

Cat can't quite believe that she's real.

And it's her fault that things had ended the way that they did, her fault that she couldn't let _go_ of her worries and her doubts and she'd let Kara slip through her fingers without putting up a fight because she thought things would be _better_ that way.

Kara deserved the world, and Cat knew she would never be able to give that to her.

She would never be good enough for her.

Never _be_ enough for her.

So when Kara had grown tired of Cat's deflections, when she'd told Cat that she loved her but Cat hadn't been able to force the words out in return even though she felt them down to her very _soul_ , when Kara had decided enough was enough and had walked away... Cat had let her.

Only Carter ever knew that they'd been together, and it had killed them both, to act like everything was fine when they were at work.

Cat knows that she'd broken Kara's heart, but on those lonely nights where all she was able to see was wounded blue eyes filled with tears, she'd taken another gulp of whiskey and let it burn her throat as she told herself, over and over again, that it was for the best.

It was better to hurt Kara like this now than it would be in a years’ time when they were both in so much deeper.

It was the most common lie she told herself.

Twenty-one months after it had ended, and eighteen since Kara had handed in her resignation and gone to work elsewhere – run halfway across the country to escape Cat's influence and the constant reminder of almosts and could-have-beens – and Cat still doesn’t believe it.

She looks at Kara now, her eyes magnetising, her cheeks flushed and her lips curved into a sad little smile, and she knows that this is a woman that Cat will never get over.

Kara Danvers is the last woman Cat will ever love, and she'll never even know it, because Cat is too much of a coward.

But at least Kara has moved on. At least she's found someone to spend the rest of her life with. At least she won't be alone, and maybe he can be everything that Kara needs that Cat never trusted herself to provide.

Cat doesn't know how long they stand there, staring at one another.

It's long enough for Kara's fiancé's face to draw into a frown of worry. Long enough for him to eye Cat curiously – curiously enough for Cat to know that Kara hasn't told him a thing about their true history, and the thought makes her feel smug and sick all at the same time – and tug her gently closer towards him.

Kara blinks, looking dazed, before she tears her gaze away from Cat, flashes her fiancé a placating smile before turning her back to Cat completely.

It stings.

And Cat still can't look away, because the dress is backless, revealing miles and miles of exposed skin – skin that Cat has memorised with fingers and lips and teeth and tongue. She remembers the ripple of the muscle there as deft fingers had dipped inside of her, Cat's hands clutching desperately at Kara's shoulders, nails biting into her skin. She remembers drawing absent patterns on Kara's back one night when she couldn't sleep, letting Kara talk about Krypton until she'd worn herself out and her eyes had fluttered closed – Cat had watched her sleep for a long time, allowed herself to memorise the peace of the moment, because she'd known even then that it wouldn't last. She remembers kissing her way down the bumps of Kara's spine one morning as she'd attempted to wake her from a deep slumber.

The memories crash into her like a tidal wave, and it leaves her dizzy and completely breathless.

It's been months since she allowed herself to think of Kara like this, since she'd given in and let the past in, and she feels like she's going to drown beneath the weight of it, pressing down on her shoulders, oppressive and heavy and clouding her mind.

The room suddenly feels very small, and Cat feels trapped, finds it hard to breathe – she feels like she does whenever she's forced to use a public elevator, tense and claustrophobic, and she knows that if she doesn’t get out of there for a few minutes, if she doesn't get some fresh air, then she might be in danger of having a panic attack in a room full of people who are there to celebrate her.

"Are you _sure_ you're alright, Cat?" Perry asks, and he's eyeing her warily now, and she wonders what she looks like – if she's as pale and shaky as she feels.

"I think I just need some air."

"There's a balcony just this way." He takes her elbow to steer her and usually Cat would scoff and shake him off because she is not _helpless_ but tonight she welcomes it, because her feet feel leaden and she's not sure she can manage to walk unsupported.

They slip out of a side door and Cat takes a deep breath as she finds herself outside, even as she shivers at the temperature of the cool night air.

"I'll go and fetch you some water," Perry tells her, giving her a pat on the shoulder and disappearing before Cat can voice her disapproval.

He knows her far too well.

She doesn’t call after him, instead chooses to lean against the balcony railing and look down at the city below.

Metropolis is a concrete jungle of bright city lights, the view spread out before her not unlike the one she has from her office, but different enough to make her yearn for home.

She thinks that it was probably a mistake to come here.

She'd known there was a risk of running into Kara, but had naively thought that Kara would avoid it, avoid _her_ , and she'd been stupid to think that she might still have some kind of hold on Kara, that she might still be heartbroken over something that had happened nearly two years ago.

She was ridiculous to assume that, just because Cat isn't over it (just because Cat never will be), that it would be the same for Kara.

And she'd been ridiculous to assume that seeing Kara again wouldn't make her feel like it had all happened only yesterday.

She hears the door squeak open again behind her, and doesn’t bother to turn from where she stands, surveying Metropolis and wondering whether it feels like home to Kara yet, or if she still mourns the city that her feelings for Cat had forced her to leave behind.

"I don’t need water, Perry, I'm fine."

"Well, I'm not Perry," a quiet voice replies, and Cat freezes, feels every single one of her muscles tense as she goes rigid, hands curling around the balcony rail so tightly that her knuckles flash white because she would know that voice _anywhere_ , "and you don't look fine."

Cat swallows, and she hates that Kara will be able to hear the way her heart is beating a frantic rhythm in her chest, equal parts terror and exhilaration.

The last time she heard that voice, it had been thick with tears; it had wavered as Kara had told her that she couldn't do this anymore and she needed to leave. Tonight, her voice still wavers, though Cat knows it's with nerves more than anything else.

After a long moment, Cat takes a deep breath and turns, finds Kara standing just in-front of the doorway, a bottle of water – Cat's preferred brand – held in a hand that quakes, the tiniest amount, as their eyes meet.

"In fact," Kara murmurs, a gleam in her eye and a small smile on her mouth, "you kinda look like you've just seen a ghost." Cat knows she should open her mouth, that she should say something, _anything_ , but she doesn't know how to find the words.

She has no right to act so speechless, when for all Kara knows, Cat never cared for her outside of her bedroom.

"Which, you know, considering, I guess makes sense," Kara continues, and clearly she has not lost the habit of nervous rambling or the incessant need to fill an awkward silence with chatter. "It’s been a while.”

“What are you doing, Kara?” Cat’s voice is barely more than a whisper, and she hates the way it trembles, takes a deep breath and forces herself to meet Kara’s eyes, marvels at how easy it still seems to be to drown in them.

“Honestly?” Kara lifts one shoulder in a shrug, a half-smile on her mouth. “I don’t know.” The silence stretches between them, endless and consuming, and Cat doesn’t know how to look away – doesn’t know if she’s strong enough to ever be able to. “I guess I just… wanted to see how you were.” Kara lifts a shoulder in a half shrug, and offers Cat a tentative smile. “And congratulate you, on the award.”

“Yes, well, I believe congratulations are in order for you, as well.” Cat’s voice is sharper than it should be, harsh in the still night air, and Kara flinches at the sound of it, eyebrows knitting into a frown, and Cat makes a valiant effort not to let her eyes stray to the ring as she says, “Perry’s been singing your praises all night long. You’ve done well for yourself, Kara.”

“Yeah, well…” Kara trails off, shrugs again, self-depreciating, and ducks her head to add, “I had a good mentor.” When she next glances up there’s something heavy in her gaze – an echo of their past, of long nights spent in Cat’s office going over layouts and edits, of Cat’s razor-sharp tongue always so quick to criticise but so rarely to offer praise for a job well done.

“I’m proud of you, Kara,” Cat tells her, because it feels wrong not to, not when she _is_ , not when she looks at everything that Kara has built for herself here, in a city far away from everything she knew, and feels her heart warm with it, even as it aches.

“T-thank you.” Kara’s cheeks are flushed pink, and she reaches down to fiddle with her ring – it must be her new nervous habit, instead of playing with her glasses – and Cat sucks in a quiet, pained breath.

“And congratulations on your engagement, too.” Kara’s head snaps up, her eyes widening slightly, hands falling limply back down to her sides, and for a moment Cat is frozen, words sticking in her throat because there is so much she wants to say, her tongue heavy with her secrets, but she knows it isn’t fair.

Kara is happy, and Kara has found someone, someone who is probably much better for her than Cat ever will be, and Cat needs to let her go.

“He seems…” Cat trails off, searching for the right word, watches as Kara eyes her warily, like she’s afraid of what Cat might say, and Cat thinks it would be so easy, to rile Kara up, to make her look at her with disgust instead of with something wistful, something like regret.

It would be better to push Kara away, to remind her of how cruel and cold and callous Cat could be, remind her (remind them _both_ ) why things had never worked out between them.

Cat has always been good at that – pushing people away, distancing herself instead of letting them get too close – and she thinks that it might be the only thing she can do to keep her broken heart from shattering any more than it already has.

“Charming,” she settles on, with a small, twisted smile – it’s forced, and she hopes it doesn’t show a trace of the twisting agony that churns in her gut, hot and heavy and making her stomach roil.

Kara’s face darkens, just the tiniest amount, and Cat thinks she’s won.

But then Kara sighs and shakes her head, a tired look in her eyes.

“He’s not you,” she admits, like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and Cat sucks in a ragged breath, feels like the air has been stolen from her lungs. “But he loves me.” Cat’s ears are ringing, her heart pounding in her chest.

“And  do you love him?” Cat can barely believe she’s dared to ask it, but the way Kara’s looking at her – eyes wide and wounded – tells Cat that she hasn’t imagined it, had spoken aloud.

“Yes,” Kara says, after a long, heavy moment, and Cat tells herself she’s imagining the way it sounds like a lie.

But Kara had never been very good at lying, and Cat thinks that, no matter what else has changed in the past two years, that personality trait is not one of them.

“Do I love him as much as I loved you?” The use of the past tense makes Cat wince. “I don’t know.” The words are raw with honesty, and Cat’s heart breaks at the same time Kara’s voice cracks. “But that doesn’t matter, does it?” Kara’s voice is bitter, and Cat hates the way blue eyes shine with unshed tears. “Because you never gave a shit about me.”

Kara lets that hang in the air between them, looks at Cat with an expectation that sits heavy on her chest, and Cat knows that Kara’s giving her a chance, a chance to come clean, to admit why she’d fled from that room the second their eyes had met.

But her throat is tight and it wouldn’t be fair, to admit that she was a fool to have let her go, to draw Kara back into her orbit when she was finally moving on – Kara is getting married, and Cat needs to accept that.

(Should be over her enough to be able to wish her well but _god_ , she’s not, because when she glances again at that damn ring she feels like there’s a pressure on her chest, so tight that she can scarcely breathe).

Kara scoffs, tosses her head and there’s some of that Supergirl steel in her gaze as she turns and walks away, and Cat should let her.

She should let her go, let Kara walk out of her life for the second (and final) time.

That’s what she _should_ do but instead, before Kara has slipped back through the balcony doorway, she opens her mouth and freezes the girl in her tracks.

“That isn’t true.” Kara doesn’t turn around, but her fingers do wrap around the doorframe, flexing hard enough for the wood to creak in protest, and Cat wonders if there will be an imprint of her hand there when she finally lets go.

It’s easier to speak without Kara’s gaze on her, though it’s no easier for Cat to tear her gaze away, not when faced with so much bare skin.

“I care about you.” Kara tenses, and Cat winces when she realises that she, unlike Kara, isn’t speaking of the past. “More than I… more than you ever knew.”

“But not enough to stop me from walking away.” Kara’s voice is tight, pained, and Cat’s hands curl into fists at her sides, nails biting into her skin but it’s not enough of a distraction from the way her heart aches with every breath she takes. “Not enough to ask me to stay.”

“You deserved better.”

“But I _wanted_ you.” Kara whirls around, then, and there are tears in her eyes and spilling down her cheeks, and Cat wishes she didn’t look so beautiful even when she cried. “I told you I loved you and you told me it would never work and it _broke_ me, Cat.” Cat _knows_ that, had seen it in Kara’s eyes that day and again when she’d handed in her letter of resignation and fled, and Cat sees it on Kara’s face all over again, as if it had happened just yesterday.

“What do you want me to say, Kara?” Cat asks, her voice cracked and her eyes stinging with tears of her own. “That I made a mistake? That I love you? That I’m completely and utterly in love with you? Please don’t get married?” The words are harsh, a bitter edge and a sardonic smile accompanying them, and Cat wonders if Kara can tell how much she _means_ them, even as she’s trying to brush it off. “ _Please_. This isn’t a fairytale, and I was never the right one for you. You deserve… so much more than I will ever be able to give. And I’ve already hurt you more than I can stand.”

“You know, I thought I was over you.” Kara’s voice is quiet, and she wipes angrily at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I thought I was finally… that I’d finally let you go.” She shakes her head, and her lips pull into a smile but there isn’t an ounce of humour in any of this. “And now you’re standing in-front of me and there’s a part of me that still… that still wants you. And if you asked me, Cat? If you asked me not to get married, to leave him and give you and me another shot, I… I think I’d actually do it. Isn’t that pathetic?”

Cat shakes her head, mouth dry, because that isn’t pathetic – what’s pathetic is how much of a coward she’s been (how much of a coward she still is when it comes to her heart, always so closely guarded), how she let Kara go but is still so very much in love with her.

What’s pathetic is how there’s a part of her that wants to get down on her knees and beg Kara for another chance, that wants to tell Kara that she will do everything so very differently this time.

But Kara has a fiancé, one who Cat sees when she turns her head, hovering a respectful few metres away from the door but with a worried frown on his features, his eyes trained on Kara and Cat knows that destroying that relationship would be one of the most selfish things she could ever do, especially when she’s not even sure of what she has to offer, not to a woman half her age with superpowers and the weight of a whole world on her shoulders.

And maybe Kara shouldn’t be in a relationship at all, if she’s out here with Cat looking at her like she still holds Kara’s heart in the palm of her hands, but it isn’t her place to interfere.

She let Kara go once, from her life if not from her heart, and while she thinks doing it again might break her clean in two, she knows it’s for the best.

That’s what she has to keep telling herself.

“I’m sorry, Kara.” The words are heavy with how much she means them, but she knows it will do little to spare either of their hearts. “For everything. You’re not pathetic – you just fell in love with a woman with a heart of stone.”

“That’s the thing though, Cat – I don’t believe you.” It’s an accusation, but the words are tired, almost as tired as the look in Kara’s eyes, and in that moment she looks so much older than twenty-seven. “You’re not cold, not underneath that persona you show to the rest of the world. I’ve seen you at your softest, late at night when the rest of the office has gone home and you finally let yourself relax. I’ve seen you around Carter, I’ve heard you telling me about your father and how much he meant to you, I’ve seen you watch me sleep when you woke up before your alarm and thought that I wouldn’t ever notice. Staring at me like I shouldn’t be real when you thought I wasn’t looking.

“Once upon a time I… I knew you better than I knew myself, and you never fooled me, Cat. You’re not made of stone. You’re soft and giving and you love with everything in your soul but you don’t show it with words, you show it with actions. With keeping your kitchen stocked with poptarts and every other sugary food imaginable when you won’t touch the stuff even if your life depended on it because you know your girlfriend needs ten thousand calories a day. With staying up late those nights where Supergirl was out in the sky because you were always worried she wouldn’t come home. With letting me sleep an extra half an hour on those nights where something terrible happened and I came back covered in blood or smelling of smoke because you knew the nightmares would have been bad but they always eased off when the sun came up. With buying a star and naming it Krypton for my birthday so that when I said a prayer I wasn’t staring up at an empty sky, and pretending that it was all Carter’s idea and not your own.”

Kara lists them all, and Cat knows that there are a dozen more stories she could tell, many more times that Cat had showed her softer side, and she wonders how often Kara has lain awake at night and replayed them all and wondered where things had gone so wrong.

“So don’t lie to me, Cat. Don’t pretend that you never felt anything at all.”

“Wouldn’t that be easier?” She asks, barely a whisper, but they both know that Kara will hear it.

“No,” Kara replies, with a sad shake of her head. “No, it wouldn’t.” Kara tilts her head then, attention drawn elsewhere, to the party that still rages on behind them. “It’s almost time for your big speech,” Kara says softly. “They’re wondering where you are.”

“Then perhaps I should get back inside.” Kara nods in agreement, but neither of them move. Cat feels rooted to the concrete of this balcony, rooted to this woman, to her Supergirl, and she can’t help but wonder if she will ever see Kara again after tonight.

It should be a relief, to not feel pain like this again, but instead the thought makes her feel ill.

She thinks she could endure this torture, if only she got to see the light in Kara’s eyes, the brightness of her smile.

Cat knows that she has to be the strong one, this time – Kara had walked away once and her head is bowed and her shoulders sag like she doesn’t think she can manage it again – and she takes a deep breath and forces herself to move on unsteady legs.

“Take care of yourself, Kara,” she murmurs, and it feels like a goodbye and the soft breath Kara takes, full of the same agony Cat feels like ice in her veins, almost cracks her resolve clean in two, makes her want to gather the other woman into her arms and never let go.

_She’s getting married_ , Cat tells herself once again, sternly, repeating it like a mantra because if Kara truly loved her maybe she never would have moved on at all – Cat certainly hasn’t managed it, has been on only three dates ever since their messy ending, and all had ended early because her heart just hadn’t been in it and after the third she’d wondered what the point of it all was, anyway. _Stop acting like a lovesick teenager._

“I… I wish you and…?”

“Nate,” Kara supplies helpfully, and Cat doesn’t know whether it’s better or worse, to be able to put a name to the face of the man that Kara has agreed to spend the rest of her life with.

“I wish you and Nate every happiness in the future.”

“You really mean that?” Kara asks, and Cat’s close enough to her now to catch the scent of her perfume, subtle and flowery, the one that had clung to Cat’s bedsheets and pillows for days after she’d left for good, and god, she still wants to drown in it.

“I want you to be happy,” Cat tells her, voice soft and she meets Kara’s gaze, finds her eyes filled with sadness and something so much deeper. “That’s all I’ve always wanted.”

“ _We_ could’ve been happy.” Cat shakes her head, because she doesn’t think so – for a while, maybe, but everyone always leaves her in the end, and she doesn’t know if Kara could have been the exception. “I meant what I said before, you know. If you asked, I’d come running.”

“I know,” Cat whispers, because she doesn’t doubt it, not for a second – it’s written across Kara’s face, has been ever since she stepped out onto this balcony, the water that had been her excuse still clutched tightly in her hands.

“My number’s still the same.” It’s quiet, and Kara doesn’t look at her when she says it, and Cat thinks it’s because they both know that she’s not going to call – not after so long, not when she’s had countless opportunities in the past.

But she nods anyway and she breathes ‘goodbye, Kara’ and wonders if this will be the last time they ever speak, allows herself a moment of weakness and brushes her fingertips over the back of Kara’s hand as she leaves, slipping through the balcony door and back into the crowd of people beyond.

Her skin tingles where they’d touched, her heart beating double time in her chest.

Five minutes later, Kara re-joins the fray, finding her fiancé and tugging at his arm, and they leave after bidding their friends a hasty goodbye. Kara pauses, just inside the doorway of the room, glances over her shoulder, her eyes meeting Cat’s from across the room.

So much separates them – distance and time and circumstance, the metres between them feeling like miles – and yet the look still freezes Cat in place, still makes her yearn for all the things that she knows she cannot have.

Kara blinks, and the spell is broken, and she allows her fiancé to lead her from the room and out of Cat’s life for the second time. Cat swallows the pain, pushes it down, takes a gulp of champagne from the flute in her hands and excuses herself from her conversation to head to the bar and get herself something stronger.

It’s a bad habit, drowning her sorrows in scotch or whiskey, and one that she’s trying to cut back on, for Carter’s sake, but god, tonight she needs it.

The evening passes in a blur of amber liquid and conversations with an endless stream of people that she won’t remember in the morning. She makes her speech and applause rings around the room and her head is fuzzy by the time she makes it back to her car.

She watches the streets of Metropolis flash by in a haze of lights as she’s driven back to her hotel for the night, the award sitting heavy in her lap, held tightly in her hands.

She’ll add it to the shelf of them she has in her office, her CatCo career the longest relationship she’s ever had. She’s sacrificed so much for her company – a son, a marriage, countless other lovers – and she’s never once doubted that it was the right decision, never wondered if there was more out there for her.

But recently her offices have been feeling emptier, her heart heavier, the CatCo walls haunted by blonde hair and blue eyes.

She can’t use a hunk of metal with her name engraved on the base to warm her bed at night.

Cat sighs and tells herself to stop moping as her car pulls up outside her hotel, thanks her driver and steps onto the pavement with only a slight wobble. She waves the driver away when he tries to escort her inside, makes it to the elevators in the lobby on unsteady legs and closes her eyes once she’s safely inside and travelling up to the fortieth floor.

Her eyes flutter open only when the doors ping her arrival, and she’s distracted, as she steps out into the hall, by fishing around in her purse for her room key, doesn’t notice that there’s someone leaning against the wall beside her room until her senses are awash with the scent of familiar perfume.

Her head snaps up, and she meets Kara’s tired gaze, and both her purse and her award slip from her fingers.

Kara moves too fast for Cat to be able to see, lurching for Cat’s dropped belongings and leaning back against the wall with them held in her grasp.

“You should probably be more careful with this,” Kara murmurs, glancing at the inscription on the award. “Considering you’ve only had it for a few hours.”

“What… what are you doing here?” Cat finds her voice as Kara hands her purse back over to her, and she clutches it to her chest like it’s a shield, trying to protect her aching heart.

“I wanted to talk to you.” Kara twists the award, around and around in her hands, and Cat watches her, feels her eyes widen when she notices that Kara’s ring finger is now suspiciously devoid of any jewellery. “I didn’t like the way we left things earlier.”

“I said everything I wanted to say.” Cat is too drunk and too hurt to do this again – her walls are down and she’s vulnerable, and all she wants is for Kara to pull her close and tell her that she forgives her for it all.

“Okay, well… I didn’t.” Kara takes a deep breath, her shoulders lifting and then dropping, her gaze fixed firmly on the floor. “I didn’t tell you how I’ve been having doubts about my relationship for the past few months. I didn’t tell you about how he only proposed to me because he cheated on me,” her voice cracks, and Cat feels fire lick through her veins and oh, she doesn’t know the first thing about him but she wants to _throttle_ him, “and he thought that it would… fix things between us. I didn’t tell you about how I only said yes because I didn’t think I’d find anyone else, because I may as well settle with him rather than try to half-ass it with someone new when I still dream about you at night.”

“Kara…”

“I still love you, Cat. I know it’s pathetic and stupid and if you tell me that there’s really nothing here, if you don’t want me and you tell me to go then I will and I promise that this time I won’t look back. But I couldn’t… I couldn’t let you go tonight without telling you the truth. Without telling you that I feel like I’ve been living in black and white since the day I left National City but seeing you tonight made me feel like I could finally see again – bold and bright enough to make my eyes ache. So just… You told me, once, that you value that honesty more than anything. That you’ve dedicated your whole life to finding the truth. I guess all I’m asking for from you is a little in return.”

Cat can do nothing but _stare_ at Kara, feels seconds tick by as she watches the other woman shift a little awkwardly under Cat’s gaze, letting her words sink in to Cat’s alcohol-soaked brain.

Kara spends her nights risking her life to save the lives of others, has no issue throwing herself in-front of speeding bullets or hurtling a Kryptonese prison into space but Cat thinks that this, laying herself so bare in-front of a woman that has already hurt her so badly, may be one of the bravest things she’s ever witnessed.

Cat knows that they stand at a crossroads, and maybe it was always going to end up like this, hanging on the edge of a cliff, teetering on a precipice and waiting for the wind to blow them one way or the other.

She knows there are two options – she can tell Kara to leave, and truly close that chapter of both of their lives for good, or she can pull her in close and admit that she’d been a fool to ever let her slip away.

She knows what the best choice for Kara will be – everything Cat touches, everything that she loves, turns to ash, crumbles to dust in her hands, and she doesn’t want to see that happen to Kara, too. Except… she’s already pushed and pushed and lashed out and hurt and yet Kara is still here, still standing in-front of her with tears in her eyes and her heart on her sleeve.

Kara’s skin is so, so soft but Cat knows it’s made of steel, and if it can withstanding a bullet maybe it can withstand her at her worst (and, Cat thinks, Kara has already seen her at her worst, in those two years as her assistant, has been by her side throughout ups and downs and never once backed away, even when Cat hurled barbed insults at her, designed to sting), maybe Kara will be the only one strong enough to stay by her side through it all.

Maybe the fact that Kara is still here, still looking at Cat like she’s in love with her, _means_ something, means that she should give this thing between them another chance. Maybe she should stop trying to keep Kara at arm’s length and instead let her jaded and cynical heart have another shot at love.

And god, she wants that – she’s never been a romantic but she wants the late nights staying up talking, learning everything she can about the one woman that’s managed to crawl under her skin and into her heart, wants the early mornings watching the rays of the rising sun illuminating the bare skin of Kara’s back, wants family nights with Kara and Carter curled up together on her couch with their heads close together as they conspired to beat her at Settlers of Catan.

She craves it with a desire that almost knocks her off her feet and maybe it’s a terrible idea but Cat wants to be reckless for once in her life. She’s always been careful, cautious – she takes risks but they’re always calculated, pros and cons carefully weighted, but this is an unknown, this would be perhaps one of the riskiest things she’s ever done… but oh, she still wants it.

“Cat?” Kara prompts, snapping her out of her thoughts, and Cat startles, heart beating fast in her chest as she reaches for her room key with trembling fingers, stepping past Kara without a word and unlocking the door.

Kara’s face falls as she sighs, taking it as a dismissal, turning to leave until Cat’s fingers wrap around her wrist, halting her in her tracks.

Kara’s skin is warm beneath her fingertips, pulse beating a quick rhythm, and Cat runs her thumb along the inside of her wrist and they both tremble at the feeling.

“Come inside,” Cat murmurs, lifting her gaze from Kara’s arm to meet her eyes, unable to breathe when blue meets green, “and we’ll talk.”

Kara follows her inside and Cat feels her heart beat with anticipation as she shuts the door behind them, and when Kara presses her against it a moment later, body warm and soft as she kisses her with an edge of longing and desperation, Cat feels like she’s coming home.


End file.
